— Photos: AFP, AP

UP IN ARMS: Students from the Sikh seminary, Damdami Taksal, demonstrate with their ceremonial swords in Amritsar on Tuesday. Above, a vehicle goes up in flames during a clash between a Sikh faction and students in Bathinda, Punjab, on Tuesday.

CHANDIGARH: The violent incidents in Punjab involving religious groups has provided an opportunity to political leaders to trade charges amid attempts to equate the situation with the events of the Sikh-Nirankari clash of April 1978.

Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, while appealing to the people to maintain communal harmony, said law and order would be "maintained at all costs." He cautioned the people against "frustrated political elements," who were attempting to foment trouble in the State.

Akali Dal chief's appeal

The acting president of the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal, Sukhbir Singh, appealed to the Congress, especially its high command, to dissuade the chief of the Dera Sacha Sauda, Baba Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, from inciting religious sentiments. He reminded the Congress that Punjab had paid a heavy price in the past due to such policies.

Mr. Singh was hopeful that the people, who had thwarted repeated attempts at creating a communal divide in the past, would once again rise to the occasion and defeat the nefarious designs of the disruptive forces, who were attempting to sabotage Punjab's endeavour to recover its glorious position in the country.

The former Chief Minister, Amarinder Singh, accused the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) of carrying out "vendetta politics by unnecessarily provoking" the Dera followers, who voted for the Congress in the last elections. He charged that false cases were being registered against them, and that Akali workers had even demolished some of their houses.

Support to Congress

During the recent Assembly elections, the Dera, based in Sirsa district of Haryana, had openly come out in support of the Congress, resulting in a SAD rout in the south-western districts of the State, where the sect claims a major presence. Top Akali leaders were defeated in these areas.

Government blamed

Leader of the Opposition Rajinder Kaur Bhattal and Congress State unit president Shamsher Singh Dullo accused the Government of having failed to pre-empt the situation. They said that the Government agencies could not foresee two unfortunate incidents where rival groups clashed in Bathinda and activists of Akali Dal (Amritsar) desecrated the statue of the assassinated Chief Minister, Beant Singh in Jalandhar on Monday.

Ms. Bhattal claimed that the controversy, revolving around the advertisement attributed to the Dera's chief, was the product of some deep-rooted conspiracy to polarise the Punjabi people.

Contrarily, Mr. Dullo minced no words to condemn attempts to imitate Guru Gobind Singh.

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